papers, and effects

Lover of all things related to comics, anime, TV, movies, history, law, & writing

[azertyrobaz]

Do you promise to play nice?

[waifines]

Photos from the most recent Yu-Gi-Oh! café, feat. KISARA!

Thank you to @NaGarE_fnrb and @shamy0525 of Twitter for taking these photos. 💙

[eevee-eevee-blog1]

I don’t remember where I saw the inspo for this but have some tender Blueshipping 😊

[pregnanthudsonwilliams]

not naming names but some of you are so creative and talented it's an honor to have you in my phone

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

[opheliaaesque]

the thing with zutara is people think their dynamic is just pure heated sexy dark Enemies to Lovers……..no……..they went from enemies (who STILL showed acts of compassion for one another) to allies with lingering tension of belligerence (which you can’t help anyway, considering their history) to FRIENDS (genuine, actual, wholesome friends. a slow, deep friendship) to LOVERS (eventually. inevitably. agonizingly. beautifully)

[hannaprashkovich]

I am so back to the Star Wars fandom (now this Din-pic is available as print💅)

[vielens]

Oil on canvas study

[thatomewirednugget]

I've watched the movie a week ago, but I remember Zeb mentioning there possibly a uniform that could fit Rotta. Soooooooo I drew Rotta in a uniform designed purely for him because I don't see enough fanart of this guy.

[kaylabeemarie]

✨🪐🌠💕

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[azertyrobaz]

Across The Universe

Takes place immediately at the end of The Mandalorian & Grogu. Spoilers ahead. Comfort and fluff and slice of life with Din and Grogu on Nevarro.

I've now watched the movie 3 times and it was exactly what I wanted it to be: a low stakes, standalone, self-contained fun adventure story focused on Din and Grogu. So of course I had to write some Clan of Two comfort fluff. Hope you enjoy, and be warned of spoilers from the film of course!

Read below or on ao3.

************

It was late afternoon by the time they arrived home on Nevarro. One of those grey, dull days that barely got any light. But no rain though, which was a good thing, since the cabin still lacked a big chunk of roof thanks to that surprise visit from the Kyuzo bounty hunter. The teen who came once a day to feed the blurrgs when he was offworld had been kind enough to push some of their furniture to the sides so that it wouldn’t get even more damaged if the weather took a bad turn. But it wasn’t like they owned anything truly valuable.

Still, that roof would need to be fixed. And soon. But just how soon was a decision he really wanted to postpone for the time being.

“Let’s find something to eat,” Din said instead, and he felt Grogu nod enthusiastically from his spot on his shoulder.

The generator hadn’t been damaged, and rummaging through the icy cooler proved that it thankfully wouldn’t need to be replaced either, but the rest of the kitchen was a different story. He mentally went through the list of things he would need to try to fix or buy again, and the familiar dread of worrying over credits gripped him for an instant before he remembered it was no longer such an issue these days, thanks to the New Republic and their much more frequent and reliable payments.

“How about some krill chowder then we’ll go check if the fresher made it?” he suggested.

“Ah!” Grogu agreed, jumping from his back to stand on the counter as he set about warming them a couple of bowls in the heating unit. It made a new, clanking, worrying sound, but it seemed to be working reasonably well still.

As they sat across from each over the counter – Grogu simply plonked himself down while he managed to rescue a sturdy metallic stool from under some rubble – it struck Din that it had been weeks since they had a quiet moment like that, just the two of them. Home and safe. He took off his helmet and inhaled deeply, the pungent smell of the chowder a welcome one.

Grogu looked up from his bowl and his ears perked up. He knew that they’d be staying home for a while if he’d decided to remove his helmet to drink his soup rather than inhaling it as quickly as possible from the corner of his mouth.

“Kind of a close one, huh?” he acknowledged.

Grogu stopped slurping his meal once more, waiting for him to elaborate. But those were not easy words to say. He hadn’t come this close to not making it for a long while. Not that he actually kept track of such things, but ever since the kid had become his apprentice he’d tried to be more careful. One thing was for certain though, he needed time to let his body heal properly. Time to let the child be a child again for a bit. Time to come to terms with the fact that his son had saved him from certain death. Twice.

“Let’s take a break, we have enough credits for a while and the Anzellans need to help me finish fixing a few things on the Crest before we hit up the Colonel for a new mission.”

The child nodded, pleased with that decision, then pointed at the missing roof.

“That, too,” Din agreed. “I’ll need to find a builder in town, I’m sure Greef can recommend one.”

Such luxury to have enough credits to actually be able to pay someone to handle that for him instead of having to figure out how to do it on his own. He was certain he’d be able to manage it somehow, but he’d rather focus on the Crest. Getting her just right was something he actually looked forward to. She would soon fly even better than the old one, and the prospect made him smile.

Grogu yawned loudly and dropped his empty bowl on the counter. His son needed some sleep, but he could tell he was still fighting it, his eyes resolutely open and his small hands jittery.

“I’ll go check if the boiler survived and draw you a bath, what do you say?”

The warm water would soothe the kid and he’d be down in no time. But his son made a face, because he knew it was his usual strategy and it meant bedtime.

“You can play in the water with your toys for as long as you like,” he added as an incentive, and it worked – it usually did.

“Bwah!” Grogu chirped, jumping down from the counter.

As the boy played noisily among his bath bubbles in a corner of the room still covered by some roof, Din found a large enough tarp to attach to the ceiling for the time being. It would do the trick unless it started raining hard, but the weather report he’d listened to on the transceiver seemed to be reasonably optimistic.

After making sure that Grogu was still busy enough in his washtub – he was – Din set about freshening up. Their clothes had survived the ordeal as they were packed in sturdy cases in the bedroom and it felt nice to put on something clean after his shower. He rubbed some healing salve over the wounds that required it and that he could easily reach in his bruised and stiff state, and decided the rest could be dealt with if it still hurt the next day.

The boy had started to play more quietly in his bath, and the splashing sounds had almost stopped – he knew he’d quickly ask to be picked up, and as soon as the thought entered Din’s mind he saw little arms reach up towards him. Grogu looked impossibly tiny and young as he slowly dried him and dressed him again in clean clothes. It amazed him anew that such a tiny being had rescued him. Travelling all across the Outer Rim with even tinier creatures and knowing exactly what to do. Choosing to stay behind once he’d been offered a safe escape despite his injunction to leave. And then taking care of him. Healing him. Making sure he didn’t die.

“That poison that infected me, you had to find an antidote for it, right?” Din asked as he slowly put each of his tiny arms into their respective holes.

Grogu nodded languidly.

“You healed the wound first, but it wasn’t enough,” he added, to another answering nod. The child had frequently healed some of his injuries – most times without his acknowledgment or approval. He had brief flashes of his comatose state on the forest floor. A feeling of warmth and reassurance that the close proximity of his son provided. Fresh water clearing his senses for a few stolen seconds. And then a weird taste in his mouth before he finally emerged from his oblivion.

“You found someone who could help,” he eventually surmised, and the boy looked up. As tired as he was he could still read worry in his eyes – he knew he wasn’t supposed to interact with strangers or show them his powers.

“You did good, kid,” he immediately reassured him, stroking his back. “I know you’re usually a good judge of character on who you can trust.” And this was true enough, as it had also been the case with Rotta, with whom he hoped to cross paths again, since anyone with such a long lifespan could be an invaluable presence in the child’s life one day. “And I know I can trust you with my life, just as you can trust me with yours.”

The child smiled, pleased to receive such high praise. He gripped a couple of his fingers tight and cooed, his ears slowly lowering as he yawned again.

They slept on the Razor Crest that night, as he’d deemed it safer once he’d engaged security ground protocols. It wasn’t just because he’d wanted to recapture the long but never lost memory of what had once been his home. Their home. As he eventually drifted off, the reassuring warm shape of his child in the crook of his arm, Din let himself revel in one last thought: maybe he wasn’t doing so bad at being a father and training his son.

[chemical-etk]

グー練

[fanfoolishness]

All the Fun of the Faire (The Mandalorian)

Din and Grogu head into town on Nevarro for supplies, but find an unexpected celebration awaiting them. Hijinks ensue. Fluff, father-son shenanigans, and Din & Greef friendship. ~3800 words. Written for @red-velvet-panda, thank you for such a fun prompt with so many hilarious ideas!

bonus: Din and Grogu vs. the hover whirl ride 😂

--

The blurrg made quiet little whuffing noises as she trotted along the lava flats. Today was meant to be a brief stop in the market, picking up only a few things, so Din had left the younger blurrg at home as she would not be needed for carrying their supplies back. Grogu laughed at the wind in his ears and the bouncy motion of the blurrg, sitting securely between Din’s legs. 

Din knew they could always get a speeder instead, but why waste the credits when they already had blurrgs? Besides, he’d grown fond of their galumphing gait, slower than a speeder but fast enough for their needs. The ride into town always gave him time to remember old friends.

The morning sun spilled over the lava flats, gilding ridges and crevices and creating deep blue shadows. There had been no new lava flows recently, no flickers of molten rock amongst the crags, but the rocky formations held a forbidding kind of beauty that Din had started to associate with home. 

Grogu burbled a question up at him, a long stream of syllables Din thought he had the idea of. “No, it’s just a short trip today. We have a lot of chores to take care of back at the house.”

Grogu’s ears dipped down in disappointment, but the kid knew better than to argue. 

Hm. Din reconsidered, noting Grogu’s newfound maturity in not whining or fussing. Maybe a few of their maintenance chores could be pushed off until tomorrow… Grogu did always love the market, whether it was trying to sneak off with the best fruits, touching every shiny thing he could reach, or babbling at the stall keepers. 

They crested the hill and looked down into the city.

”What the —“

Even from a distance they could tell things were different. Far more ships and speeders than usual were lined up outside the city gate. Music, faint and piping, carried across the flats. Bright flags festooned the main gate, their colors flashing through the main streets. And the crowds of people — everyone from the city and the homesteads must be here to make such a throng.

Grogu squealed with excitement. Even the blurrg rumbled with curiosity. And they still needed supplies.

”We’ll go check it out,” said Din. “But we can’t stay long.”

--

Of course, within five minutes of tying up their blurrg at the city entrance and hitting the market, High Magistrate Greef Karga had spotted them and was imploring them to stay longer. If possible his robes were even finer and more ridiculous and resplendent than ever. His entourage dipped and bowed and scurried around him.

"You made it!” Greef bellowed.

"Made it to what?” Din asked as a horde of small children in colorful hoods barreled past them, waving flags and streamers. “What is all this?”

“It’s the first annual Nevarro Day Celebration! I sent you a formal invitation, didn’t you receive it?” Greef asked as a passing mother handed him her baby to bless. He kissed the little Rhodian on its head, to her delight, and she went on her way beaming.

”It… might not have been received,” Din said delicately. There had been a blinking message on his receiver the night the bounty hunter had broken in, but the whole thing had been blasted in the scuffle, and it hadn’t exactly been his top priority when they got back from Nal Hutta and needed a whole new roof. 

“Well, I’m glad you and Grogu are here anyway. Wouldn’t be a celebration without you two,” Greef said, clapping Din on the shoulder. “This festival is for all Nevarrans to celebrate our world and its liberation. That includes you two, you know, and all the Mandos who’ve stayed.” He patted Grogu on the head and Grogu leapt into his arms, giggling. 

Din considered. “I guess you could call us Nevarrans, couldn’t you.” What else did one call it when one lived somewhere for the past few years and called it home? 

Grogu nodded, looking pleased with himself. 

“See? Kid’s a proud Nevarran Mandalorian,” said Greef. “Now go on. Enjoy the faire! I’ve got various duties to attend to, of course, but I’m sure I’ll see you both throughout the day. After all, you’re hard to miss.”

“So are you,” Din pointed out, gesturing to his voluminous glittering robes, and Greef’s guffaw rang out even through the voices of the crowd.

—

Din and Grogu had seen many intense things in their years together. The most vicious underworlds. The fiercest criminal rings. The worst the Empire could throw at them. Most recently, the cruelty of the Hutts. 

But they’d never seen this maelstrom of kids and families and crowds teeming in the streets, everyone wearing their most colorful outfits, the kids screaming for more sweets, the parents seesawing between proud delight and exhausted annoyance, the market swollen to three times its normal size with creature exhibits and craft stalls and fried food stands and… and rides?

Grogu chattered with excitement at a dizzying structure with little swings dangling from it, spinning kids around in circles in the middle of the city square. To Din’s surprise he couldn’t see a bit of hover tech on it. It all seemed to run on gravity. “You want to go on that?” Din asked doubtfully. “But we have the Rising Phoenix. And you can jump with your powers.”

Grogu scolded him roundly, getting into his face and waving one little hand. It was clear that somehow it was different than flying or leaping, at least in Grogu’s mind. Din sighed. It was a small battle to concede. “Fine. But don’t forget, you’re short. You’ll have to sit with me.” Grogu nodded impatiently at him for stating the obvious.

They climbed the steps to the swing entrance after a brief wait in line. Din recognized a couple of the kids from town getting off the ride, a few human children and one helmeted Mandalorian foundling whose mother was standing back at the exit waiting for him. She tilted her helmet towards Din and shrugged, her hands wide as if to say “I don’t get it either.” He nodded. Kids.

The ride operator looked them up and down. “You’ll have to hold the baby,” the scrawny teenaged Mythrol said. 

“That’s fine,” Din said as Grogu let out an indignant squawk. He followed the teenager to their swing and buckled them in. “I know you’re not a baby, kid,” he told Grogu consolingly. “But they don’t know that.”

Grogu made his annoyed face, complete with downturned ears, but didn’t have time to get more annoyed about being called a baby before the ride started. With a jerk the ride sprang to life, hauling them into the air. Grogu swung his feet with glee, grabbing Din’s hand and raising it above his head as they began to arc a wide loop over the market square. The buildings swung and swooped around them as cheery music blasted.

Din tried to look down at Grogu — it was nice to see him so excited, so carefree — but a dizzy wave passed over him as their swing kept spinning. The hell?

He practiced rotational drills with the Rising Phoenix when he could, of course, but this — not having any control over the spin — this was different. He turned his gaze back to the horizon, trying to keep it fixed on a single point, but it just spun them round and round. When the ride finally ended and lowered them back to the ground, Din let out a long breath. It took him a beat to get back up, still carefully holding Grogu. The kid turned in his arms to look up at him.

"Ba? Ba!” Grogu crowed, clearly wanting to go again.

"No, once is enough,” Din said, patting the kid’s back. “And we still need our supplies. That’s enough fun.”

--

It was not nearly enough fun for Grogu.

To Din’s credit, they did get the supplies they needed. A week’s worth of fresh herbs and veggies to throw into their dehydrated pog soup stores, since their own vegetable garden was at a low ebb right now. Fresh-baked bread, three still-warm loaves. Dried sausage. Refills of powdered soap for the refresher and for their laundry. A six-pack of tubes of meringues because Grogu had a sweet tooth like nothing else. Wood oil for the stock of his new amban rifle. 

That should’ve been the end of it. But Grogu found a way to convince him of just a few more minutes, just one more market stall, just one more snack…

So many snacks.

First he got the kid a skewer of fried lava bugs, each with a different seasoning. They found a quiet corner and Din took a bite of each flavor, raising his helmet just enough for a good mouthful. They were pretty delicious, actually - one spicy, one cool ranch, one smoky sweet, one of bright herbs and citrus. The fried coating was addictively crunchy, especially on the legs.

Next was a bowl of goat ribs, deep-smoked and smothered with three different sticky sauces, spangled with stone pepper slices and shreds of cave onion. Under the ribs was a pile of mashed twice-fried yucca, loaded with cheese. Din tried to get Grogu to stick to using the flimsy disposable fork that had come with the dish, but the kid dove in headfirst and practically drenched himself in sauce. Din helped him with a few bites. The sauce clung to his gloves despite his own best efforts.

That was really going to be the end of it. Until Greef reappeared, bright-eyed and laughing up a storm, bearing a bowlful of goatsmilk ice cream drenched in chocolate and caramel and sprinkles and a vast plume of whipped cream. “Just who I was hoping to find!” Greef proclaimed, pressing the massive bowl into Din’s hand. He leaned in and whispered, “You gotta get rid of this for me. The sweetest little old shopkeeper wouldn’t take no for an answer and it would be dreadful for my reputation if I didn’t humor them. But I’ve already eaten four ice creams today and I think I might die if I try for another. I’m not as young as I used to be.”

”This is your festival,” Din muttered under his breath. “You’re the High Magistrate. Your word is law!”

"It doesn’t work that way, Mando! Politics are a delicate game —“

Slurrrp. Grogu was halfway though the bowl and somehow, he had gotten ice cream in his ears.

“Kid —“

"I knew you wouldn’t let me down!” Greef said, and bustled on to his next engagement. Din just sighed, then found a free table to set Grogu on. He stuck a spoon in the ice cream and took a few bites. All right. It was delicious as hell. They worked on it together, Din lifting his helmet for each bite.

“Okay, kid,” Din said as he tossed the empty ice cream bowl into the trash. Grogu clambered up on his shoulder, wiping ice cream off his face and licking it off of his palms. “We gotta start heading back.” He glanced to the kid, catching just a hint of his face through the far edge of his visor. ”You understand?”

Grogu gave him the biggest, wettest, saddest eyes in the galaxy, and his little face crumpled.

Din held firm. Don’t give in. You’re stronger than this. 

Grogu looked as if everything he had ever loved had just been incinerated.

You’re in charge here. It’s good for the kid to not get everything he wants.

Grogu sighed, the tiniest breath of air, just barely audible through the hubbub of the crowd. He tilted his head, then glanced out at all the things they still hadn’t looked at - crafts, creatures, more rides. He held out one small clawed hand, and his lower lip trembled.

"Da?”

Dank farrik!

—

They made their way through the bustling crowds. Grogu clapped and waved at a baby rancor in a pen feasting on unidentified meats. Din raised a hidden eyebrow at a pool holding a three-meter-long creature that reminded him unpleasantly of Nal Hutta’s dragon-snake. Grogu hid his face in Din’s shoulder when they passed an arachnid the size of a blurrg, even though it was restrained behind transparisteel. 

They left the menagerie and wandered through stalls of goods. Din stopped and picked up a finely woven child’s hood with a wide oval shape, big enough to accommodate Grogu’s ears should they find themselves in fierce sun or rain or snow. He’d been bothered by their last snowy mission realizing he had nothing to keep the kid’s ears warm. Grogu perched on the seller’s table, touching each bolt of fabric and purring when he found ones that were extra soft. The shopkeeper was entranced and gave Grogu a blue-green toffee, which the kid promptly devoured.

A clanging sound led them onto the next stall, where a shifty-looking Pantoran was presiding over toy blasters and targets for a shooting contest. He spotted them coming up and shook his head, waving his arms. “Oh, no, no no,” he said, tapping a sign beside him. NO MANDALORIANS.

”Excuse me?” Din asked, his voice measured. 

The Pantoran stammered, “Well, it ain’t fair, is it? You all are the best marksmen in the galaxy! We want the regular folk to have a chance here.”

”Uh-huh,” Din deadpanned. “And my son?”

The Pantoran pointed to Grogu’s mudhorn sigil, proudly displayed on his rondel. ”Well, he’s a Mandalorian too, ain’t he?”

He had them there. Din loomed silently for a moment over the Pantoran, then kept walking, grinning slightly to himself. Grogu giggled at his shoulder. He couldn’t blame the guy, not really. It wouldn’t have been a fair match at all.

They stopped in at a temporary toy stall run by a young Toydarian. Din was startled to recognize the logo on the wall. “You folks are a long way from Batuu,” he said. 

“Oh, you’ve visited us in the Outpost? Well, my grandmother’s looking to expand the shop to other worlds,” the young shopkeeper said, flitting between the rows of toys, her wings shimmering. “And she and the High Magistrate go way back.” She winked.

Din chuckled. “Is that so?” He supposed nothing surprised him anymore.

The Toydarian giggled. “You didn’t hear it from me.” She glanced at Grogu, who had climbed into a basket of plushies. “Need a new toy for your son?”

Din hesitated. Grogu did have plenty of toys. But —

Grogu held out a simple wooden figure that was, unmistakably, a Mandalorian. A helmet with a carved and painted T-visor, pauldrons, cuirass, greaves. A little fabric cape. It wasn’t Din — that would be ludicrous — but with a child’s imagination, it could well be.

Grogu gazed up at Din with the figure in his hands, his eyes shining. Din swallowed. 

“Yeah,” he said, voice cracking, “we’ll take that one.”

—

”Okay,” he said as Grogu polished off the last of a cloud of airy, filamentous candy. Din smacked his lips, still tasting berry and vanilla. “We gotta get our blurrg home.” The sun was already low in the afternoon sky. How had he let the day get away from them so? If they stayed out much later, they’d have the reptavians to deal with, and that was more than he wanted after a long day like today.

Grogu tapped Din’s pauldron and pointed. Din followed his kid’s direction, landing on a ride of little round hover vehicles all twirling madly. “What, you wanna go on that?” 

Grogu nodded, his eyes blazing with determination. Din huffed. Well, he knew the kid was a daredevil.

They waited longer than Din was prepared to, but by the time he thought about bailing on the line, they were already halfway through it and Grogu looked just as determined as ever. His kid was practically vibrating with excitement, waving his new Mandalorian toy and jittering. Though maybe that was all the sugar he’d eaten.

They reached the front of the queue and were ushered into a little round car with a simple waist seatbelt. Grogu scooted next to Din and Din draped an arm over his shoulder just in case the kid didn’t like it. The Twi’lek kid running it lifted her hand and waved, and started the ride going while madcap jizz music blared.

Oh.

Oh he did not like this at all.

If the swings had been bad, the hover whirls were a hundred times worse. Their surroundings spun and whorled and blurred around them. This wasn’t the rotational drills with the Rising Phoenix. It wasn’t a barrel roll in the Razor Crest or the N-1, where he knew exactly what to expect and was in control the entire time. It was pure unadulterated madness, and Din was suddenly acutely aware of every fried bug, ice cream soup, goat chunk, yucca blob and cotton cloud candy in his stomach, bouncing and swirling around—

Don’t. Puke.

He couldn’t. He was wearing his helmet. He was in public. Grogu was pressed into his thigh by centrifugal force, squealing with delight with his arms waving, his little Mando toy’s cape fluttering. Din had to keep it together.

He melted into the back of the hover whirl, pressing his arms against it as hard as he could, breathing rapidly through his nose, trying to find a reference point on the horizon to focus on. He gagged once, mouth filling with saliva, and choked his gorge back down through sheer force of will. He tried briefly to close his eyes but that made it much worse, and he kept them open the rest of the ride until they watered.

The hover whirl came to a blessed and merciful end. Din’s head kept spinning regardless, the contents of his stomach sloshing around. He stared at the horizon, willing it to stop spinning.

”Ba?” Grogu asked curiously. Din managed to glance down at him, swallowing hard. 

“Urp —“

He kept it all down. 

Barely.

—

The sun was setting as Din slowly made his way to the city gate, Grogu snoring against his shoulder, cradled in his arms while still holding fast to his Mando toy. His stomach had finally settled, though he had decided to swear off candy and ice cream for the foreseeable future. And no more hover whirls.

Lights in the city streets twinkled on, spanning the thoroughfare with warm gold. The mood was changing from the clang and clamor of daytime to a hushed and quiet anticipation as tired families lined the streets, looking up as if waiting for something. Din could appreciate the change in mood, but they had things to do. He’d already tarried far too long.

Greef appeared again, still surrounded by his entourage. He looked a little tired too, but his smile stretched warmly to the wrinkles at the edges of his eyes. He nodded to them.

”Looks like you and your son enjoyed the faire.”

Din smiled, patting the slumbering Grogu on the back. “Yeah, I think we did. Kid had a good time.”

”That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it, Mando?” Greef mused. “Remember this place years ago? Not exactly a town to raise a family in.”

”No,” Din agreed. “Things have changed.” He nodded towards Greef’s finery. “We’ve changed.”

”Yes, we have,” Greef agreed. He reached out, brushing Grogu’s ears slightly. Grogu sighed and turned over in his sleep, smiling slightly. “I’m glad you both have found a home here. All of this would never have happened without the two of you.”

Din thought of protesting. But then he thought of coming back to Nevarro with Kuiil and IG-11 and Cara for Grogu’s sake, of coming back with Mandalorians to fight and defend the planet, and he had to admit that maybe Greef had a little bit of a point.

He clasped Greef’s arm in a firm handshake. “Maybe so,” he said. “But it wouldn’t have happened without you either, High Magistrate.”

Greef smiled warmly at him. “Maybe so,” he echoed. “Good to see you both. I hope you can come by town more often.”

”We’ll do what we can,” Din said. “We’ve been busy with work for the New Republic. But I’m pulling back for now. Things… got a little close out there. Maybe it’s time to focus on home for a while.”

”I like the sound of that,” said Greef. One of his attendants hurried up to him, whispering into his ear. Greef nodded. “Well, I’m needed for the grand finale. I’d ask you to stay, but I can tell when you need to get going. Just keep an eye out as you go, all right? It should be quite the sight.”

Din tilted his helmet forward in a nod. “We will, Greef. Until next time.”

”Until next time, Din Djarin.”

And then the High Magistrate was gone, whisked away for his duties, and Din made his way back to their blurrg.

—

They had barely crested the first hill when the fireworks began.

Din turned their blurrg back to face the town. Showers of blue and green and red and gold and white filled the air, explosions of color and sound echoing over the darkening lava flats. Grogu woke with a start and began to ask a question, until his voice faded away while watching the bursts of light flare against the deep blue night. Din set Grogu up on his knee and the kid leaned back against him, one hand pointing out each array of light as it bloomed, the other hand still clutching his toy tightly against his chest. 

“Pretty neat, huh, kid?” Din asked.

Grogu couldn’t answer. He was transfixed, fireworks playing across his wide dark eyes, his mouth half-open with wonder. Din pulled him closer. 

“Guess what?” Din asked.

”Buh?” Grogu asked, unable to tear his eyes away.

”We can come back next year.” He let out a long breath. “Every year. You and me.” For as long as I’ve got. “You know why?”

Grogu turned around, looking up into his visor, and threw his arms around his chest.

Din bent over his son, holding him close. He closed his eyes as the fireworks boomed and blasted overhead, echoing off the canyons and the flats, a celebration he could feel in chest and bone and beskar. “Because,” he said. “It’s home.”

[highpriestessstuff]

[corellianhounds]

You know what people like better than a Strong Female Character™, Filoni?

A strongly written character.

Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian, after a more fractious and character-driven episode of “The Heiress,” has Mando begrudgingly asking Bo-Katan for help retrieving his kid only because it’s clear she’s had experience hijacking and navigating around Imperial ships, she has numbers with Koska and Axe behind her, and she is a legitimately good fighter.

Bo-Katan initially scoffs and refuses. To her, he is either intentionally or unintentionally the reason she lost the shipment of Imperial arms and munitions, and their culture clash only drove the divide between them even wider. Now he wants her help? Is he insane?

“It’s Moff Gideon’s lightcruiser,” Mando says.

And that gives her pause. She sneers at him with both derision and suspicion, saying nobody can just track down an Imperial Moff, especially a Moff who’s former ISB, especially by someone like you, Mando.

Mando grits his teeth and shows her verifiable proof and oh, noooooow she’s whistling a different tune. She readily agrees, giving him the same warning about leaving Gideon for her to fight. Din doesn’t care: his child is his only priority.

So the infiltration goes off and they get inside the ship with their collective crews. Mando beats Moff Gideon and saves his child, and then he shows up on the bridge with the Darksaber in hand, the tip of the blade humming at Gideon’s back.

Now Bo-Katan is even angrier. He, deliberately or not (and at this point she’s certain it’s deliberate, him continuing to foil her at every turn), did the one thing she told him not to do, and now this- this outsider, this cultist who knows nothing, is standing there with her sword.

And then he has the audacity to offer it up in forfeit, right there in front of everybody. There’s no possible way she’ll be able to challenge him for the sword now because people will know that he never wanted it in the first place, so he’d obviously just be throwing the fight and she’d have no legitimate claim over it.

He doesn’t even want it.

“It has to be won in combat,” she grits out through her teeth. She can’t even attack him here, not when he’s already tried to yield it to her and he’s holding the foundling he saved as a result of winning said fight in his other arm. The Mandalorian ideal, wrapped up in this new suit laden with more beskar than she’s seen in one place for a long time.

She can’t even begin to say how much she hates him right now.

But then in her periphery she hears Moff Gideon chuckle, and Bo-Katan bristles, knowing exactly what he’s about to say as soon as she hears him laugh and it’s going to ruin everything, but she’s too late

“Why can’t he forfeit the sword?” Gideon taunts. “Thats how I got it from you.”

The bright flash of a blaster bolt sails through the air and hits Gideon square in the chest, knocking him back with a grunt as Bo-Katan strides forward to kill him with her bare hands. There’s an immediate clamoring of voices, the drop soldier hitting her like a brick wall and holding her back while everyone else tries to break up the impending fight, saying he’s a war criminal who needs to answer to the New Republic for his crimes. Gideon groans, falling back against the console as his plastoid chest plate smokes, and Bo-Katan Kryze trembles with rage.

Koska and Axe are behind her. She knows what expression she’ll see on their faces, the immediate disdain and loss of respect. She shouldn’t have shot him. She shouldn’t have shot him because that’s more of an admission of guilt than anything, and now all of them know.

Gideon still somehow manages to chuckle weakly and she realizes that he knew exactly what he was doing. Even defeated and without recourse, he excels at psychological warfare and he’s just fractured any and all support she may have ever had at her back. The Nite Owls know. The cultist knows. The droptrooper, the assassin, the clone—

Everybody now knows that Bo-Katan Kryze, Mandalorian heiress to the throne of their homeworld, had at one point in time faced down Moff Gideon with the Darksaber in hand and had not fought to the death. They know that she forfeited the sword at the height of the Empire’s war, and they know that Mandalore fell either due to a malicious or cowardly surrender, or because she was foolish enough to believe the Empire would grant them mercy.

To them, she’s completely inept and an idiot, or she’s a traitor, or she’s a coward, if not all of the above. Nothing about her actions was befitting of a Mandalorian and she’s fought so hard for so long to keep anybody else from finding out. With two sentences Moff Gideon has ripped any support or chance of leadership and restoration away from her entirely. It doesn’t matter what her intentions were when she surrendered; no one will ever truly know or believe her because there is no other way for them to see this freshly re-opened wound as anything other than a complete disgrace to her house, her creed, and her armor. Nobody will rally behind her now.

At the end of season 2, Bo-Katan is alone.

[corellianhounds]

Criticism of Ahsoka Tano’s Character and Role in Season 2 of The Mandalorian with Suggested Changes

Word Count: 2.8k

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I’m largely indifferent to and more critical of Ahsoka Tano’s live action appearances in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett than favorable. The short reason for why is that my introduction to her was the second season of Mando with “The Jedi” episode, and your audience only cares about Gandalf the White if they already know Gandalf the Grey.

The longer reason is that I don’t think she’s utilized well for Mando’s story. When I saw her for the first time I only knew through cultural osmosis that she was in TCW and was Anakin’s padawan. That’s it. I don’t know anything about her character and that episode doesn’t give me much to go on. I haven’t seen The Clone Wars or Rebels cartoons and I think it’s unrealistic to automatically expect your audience to know who this person is when this show was introduced as a standalone story with brand new characters, simply set in the world of Star Wars. There’s no indication that I should have seen two unrelated cartoon shows before going into The Mandalorian, so if you’re going to have this pre-established character from another medium, she should be written as if you’re introducing her for the first time. Don’t rely on what part of your audience knows about her, introduce her to this story as a new character because she’s entirely new to your main character (who in this show is also the audience’s proxy for new information). You shouldn’t be relying on our hypothetical prior knowledge for us to trust her or know where she’s coming from regarding the Jedi as a whole.

If your intention as the show runner is for your target audience to be people who have consumed select pieces/all of Star Wars media in the past forty years so you don’t have to do a lot of (or better) exposition, you have to be okay with automatically limiting your audience and likely having casual viewers (of which Mando had many) drop off when you start writing in characters without having more thorough storytelling establishing their place in this show. From a casual viewer’s standpoint, her character isn’t all that interesting, forthcoming, or fleshed out in “The Jedi,” at least not enough for me to care about the fact she’s apparently the main character of that episode since the central conflict/physical plot doesn’t affect or pertain to Mando’s overarching plot or character development, and the Thrawn name drop meant nothing to the audience regarding Mando’s story that far and— in the rest of two seasons of his own show and his participation in TBoBF— has yielded nothing as a result.

What the episode did was introduce Ahsoka so she could get her own show and it largely wasted Mando’s episode and his involvement with Ahsoka for that entire season. We’re not given any indication that the information he gets could only come from her and not another Force user, and at that point the show would have been better served with an original character not constrained by or beholden to an established (apparently canon?) history or the episode’s focus on her.

Bo-Katan comes back at the end of Season 2 and is involved with the overarching plot. Cobb Vanth was apparently from the comics but I didn’t need to have read them for his character to make sense in the Krayt dragon episode because they DID lay out his character well enough I didn’t need prior context. Objectively, “The Jedi” episode is poorly written as an episodic installment of The Mandalorian, the script and characters on their own aren’t all that compelling, the music is what really indicates I’m supposed to care about Ahsoka/her decisions, and if you look at it from the POV of knowing Mando’s story with no knowledge of Ahsoka, she’s kind of wishy-washy and vague in her response to testing/training the kid and her explanation as to WHY she has reservations. I don’t find her character admirable when she refuses to go through with their deal in the end, especially since it’s apparent she had bigger priorities from the beginning.

I know her being clear about her priorities would negate Mando’s purpose in staying there and the episode would follow him off to wherever he went next, but keeping Mando there for her for the whole episode only for her to go back on their deal makes her seem deceitful and not much different than Bo-Katan, who also used him for her own gain and changed the terms of their deal partway through the job once Mando was already working for her. The only difference is in their deliveries and personalities. The showrunners relied too heavily on the audience not wanting Mando to separate from Grogu to be what kept us from protesting about/criticizing Ahsoka’s decision; audience emotions are irrelevant to what will make a stronger story that will have more impact in the end. We don’t have to like every character who’s introduced, and our opinions about them can change over time as the story progresses and we see them develop.

If you don’t want me to think negatively of Ahsoka but you’re dead set on these circumstances being what keeps these two characters together for the length of the episode, she can’t have her mission take priority in the end. It’s that plain and simple. If she was never going to train the kid, she needed to be upfront about it AND you need to explain to Mando— somebody who has zero clue about the Jedi code or Force powers or the caution against attachment and it’s reason for existing in the first place— why the kid seeing him as his father is relevant to Jedi training at all. You can’t just say “You're like a father to him. I cannot train him,” you have to explain to Mando what being a Jedi™ means.

The Jedi were peacekeepers specifically trained to uphold and defend what was best for the greater good and to serve as protectors of other people, meaning the choice to train the child as a Jedi would mean Grogu dedicating his life to this schooling, and that people with strong emotional personal attachments tend to have a harder time separating themselves from their loved ones and tend to prioritize those loved ones over everybody else, meaning they’re less likely to be good at doing what the Jedi specifically were called to do. That doesn’t mean the kid or anybody with similar tendencies is ‘bad,’ it means they shouldn’t dedicate their life to being a Jedi™. There’s more than one way to learn how to use the Force.

Does that ruin the chance of Mando staying there on Corvus because he would logically move on, meaning we as the audience wouldn’t see Ahsoka’s Cool Samurai Episode™? Yeah, but those are the circumstances Favreau and Filoni came up with, so either you change the story or change Ahsoka’s character or change Mando’s role in the Calodan conflict. Kill your darlings and write a better story. It’s not the Ahsoka show, it’s Mando’s.

However, the episode isn’t unfixable.

One of my biggest complaints with Season 2 is that it failed to establish/drive Mando’s character with the inner motivation of why he’s bringing the kid to a Jedi in the first place: yes, the Armorer tasked him with returning the child to the Jedi so that the boy had the chance of being raised by people like him who may already know him and would understand how to raise him to control the powers he has, but that’s the external reason. The whole premise of the show is predicated on the child being in danger and Mando wanting him to be safe. The Armorer says in the finale for Season 1 that the boy is too small and young to be trained as a Mandalorian, but given the fact he’s capable of powers that allow him to do these incredible things, there’s a possibility he can be trained to defend himself in other ways. The point of giving the child to a Jedi is that he’s given the cultural upbringing closest to what he would know as his own (an ideal the Armorer, Mando, and Mandalorian culture as a whole would understand the importance and value of), and most importantly, he can learn to protect himself.

“The Heiress” should have established that as Mando’s internal motivation, and “The Jedi” should have been where the character voiced it because by this point in the season he should be at his most desperate. He’s finally found a Jedi and she’s reluctant to take him. Ahsoka’s his last lead. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there is only one way for Din and Grogu’s story to end, and it’s with one of them dying before the other. The child does not age the same way humans do. He needs to be trained to use his powers so that he can defend himself when he’s alone. His proximity to Din makes him a target by association because Din simply being a Mandalorian invites conflict. Even when the Empire isn’t after the kid, the child is constantly in danger. Even if Din lives to a remarkably old age, the boy may still be a child by his species’ reckoning. Who’s going to take care of him once Mando is gone? What happens if they’re separated now and the child is in danger?

That’s a very real and compelling motivation for Din to want to give the child away for the child’s own good, permanently if he has to. If giving the boy to a stranger means he will be safe and taught how to keep himself safe, that’s the sacrifice Din is willing to make, especially since that’s mirrored in his experience and upbringing with the Mandalorians. That’s the kind of sacrifice any good parent with empirical evidence backing up their reasoning would understand, and Din has seen that evidence in spades.

We should see Din being scared for the child. That worry fuels his mission and it should stoke his anger and frustration when that mission continues to be foiled by dead ends (Cobb Vanth not being a true Mandalorian, therefore having no contact or information to give him), side journeys that cost him time, resources, safety, and possessions (the Frog Lady’s contact for information contingent on traveling sublight, which garners them the attention of the law), and personal conflicts and compromises (Bo-Katan’s heist, deception, and their culture clash). “The Siege” re-establishes that the child is still in the greatest possible danger he could be as a target of the Empire, and Mando is following his last flimsy lead to a Jedi who may or may not exist or even be on the planet he’s been sent to, considering the person who gave him that intel deceived him once already before giving it to him.

Mando should have been desperate for Ahsoka’s help. If she refuses to train the kid, he (as far as he’s aware) has no other options. If Ahsoka were honest about having larger priorities to attend to (ones Din wouldn’t object to if she explained she was fighting the resurgent Empire too), she could have told him about Tython at the beginning and the two would have parted ways without wasting Mando’s (and the audience’s) time on the Calodan storyline.

Mando wasn’t given enough time or personal connection to the people under the magistrate’s despotic rule for his bleeding heart and sense of honor to compel him to stay, and Ahsoka was honestly capable enough I don’t think she needed Mando’s help. She was planning to storm the castle herself anyway. Mando could have gotten the spear another way if that was to be his incentive for taking down Elsbeth.

In order to fix “The Jedi” and still have Ahsoka as the main secondary character and still have her be an honorable person by the end, a few things need to happen:

If Ahsoka was going to be a genuine option to take the kid under her wing, she should have been sent there by somebody else to depose the magistrate and gain the information about Thrawn that she would then relay back to her partner or employer, or she should had a personal vendetta against the magistrate (devoid of any connection to Thrawn) and genuinely needed help getting close enough to take her out.

Mando needs to be given more story and connection to the given circumstances of Calodan, forming connections with and gathering exposition from the people in town

Ahsoka and Mando’s discussion where she’s already reluctant to take the child as a student for personal reasons needed a better explanation based on how she saw her own master fall because of his flaws (just enough to flesh her out and give exposition to Mando/the audience who have no idea who she is), and Din’s own reasoning and desperation need to reach a boiling point where he reveals why he’s so insistent on the child needing a teacher (so the child can be taught to protect himself). This discussion needs to establish tension and stakes that make the emotional conflict (having Ahsoka take the kid and Mando’s mission being complete) dependent on the outcome of the physical conflict (the liberation of Calodan, Ahsoka resolving whichever conflict she has with Elsbeth)

That revelation allows Ahsoka to say she’ll consider taking the child as a pupil, but that it can’t be done until her mission is completed

The two of them have contact with other characters introduced from Mando’s more fleshed out connections and the story in town, grounding Mando’s involvement in this physical conflict

And most importantly, something Mando does in the ending fight/s inadvertently affords one of the citizens the chance to kill Elsbeth themselves before Ahsoka can get the information she wants. This reinforces Mando’s character as somebody who puts power into the hands of the people most affected by the conflict they’ve asked him to help with, and it inadvertently thwarts Ahsoka’s objective in obtaining information, forcing her to forgo the kid’s apprenticeship and forcing Mando to continue ahead, trying to find the information elsewhere. This outcome, based on consequences driven by character decisions, is much more compelling and satisfying and more naturally prevents the main character from achieving his main objective, forcing him in the story to continue forward.

This doesn’t mean the two of them have to be enemies. Conflict from outside factors prevents Ahsoka from being the child’s teacher and gives a logical segue for Ahsoka to give Mando the next best thing since she can no longer help (information about Tython and the chance of finding another Jedi or Force user). It provides a more natural exit for Ahsoka to either stay or go in the larger story of Mando and the kid, and her character doesn’t end up being wishy-washy or deceitful at all. Things just didn’t work out for the three of them, and it’s time for them to part ways.

If anything, doing that episode right could have meant it became a two-parter in order to really get into some of the nitty gritty of each of those characters and more worldbuilding and hey! Now die-hard Ahsoka fans get two episodes with her, and Mando’s character is given meaningful involvement in town and we can flesh out the storyline with Elsbeth a little more, raise the stakes and really give it some tension and make it more unique.

(This episode could have also had the optional bit of exposition of the two of them coming to the realization that the child doesn’t necessarily need to be a Jedi, that was just the information Din was operating under because that was what was available to him, and what Din really means when he says he needs to find a Jedi is that he wants the child to be protected by people who understand him and can teach him the kind of effective self defense he’d be capable of. Ahsoka or whoever you have filling her role (or even somebody in the town) can tell Mando that being a Jedi is not the only way to master use of the Force, that there are other avenues that would achieve Din’s inner objective, which in turn foreshadow and/or parallel Din dealing with challenges to his faith and the other ways he sees people being Mandalorians.)

(Him deviating from the exact wording of the mission the Armorer gave him is a non-issue. She gave him an objective with the broadest and biggest target she herself likely had knowledge of and she wouldn’t have cared if the kid ended up being given to a non-Jedi provided they were still a Force-user and they were who Din decided was best suited to fill that role. She trusts his judgment. This show had the opportunity to branch out into what else the world of Star Wars has to offer and diversify the setting so that we could have either gotten away from the Jedi or kept from rehashing things the audience is already aware of concerning them.)